Summer of the Redeemers

by Carolyn Haines

  “Nadine,” I spoke very calmly. She’d thought she’d make me afraid, but she hadn’t. It was worse than Selena’s ghost, worse than going into the barn by myself late in the evening when I expected to find the wrathful ghost of old Sheriff Sidney Miller. “We have to call the sheriff.”

  “No!” She put both hands on her knees and leaned forward. “That’s exactly what he would want me to do. I’ve called the police before. They won’t help a woman if it’s her husband.”

  “But you’re divorced.”

  “Around here that only makes it worse,” she said. “Let the bastard come on. I know he’s around now. And I know what he’s up to. I don’t want any lawmen in the way, because when I see him, I’m going to kill him.”

  The room was stifling. Sweat trickled from the base of my hairline down my neck, slipping farther along my spine and down to the waistband of my shorts. The bends of my legs were sweating. After what Phillip had done to Caesar, he deserved to die. I didn’t doubt it for a moment. But he could come back and kill the other horses, or Nadine. She was alone. She needed someone to help her.

  “Do you still think Greg had anything to do with this?” Nadine asked.

  In all of his days at the barn, I’d never seen Greg act as if he wanted to hurt one of the horses. It had been the crucifix and doubts about Mr. Tom that had made me suspect him all along. That and the fact that things on Kali Oka Road had changed since the Redeemers had moved there. “Redeemed through suffering.” A horrible, terrible thought crossed my mind.

  “Nadine! What if your husband is with the Redeemers?”

  The smile she gave me was cunning. “Oh, Bekkah, don’t you think I’ve thought of that? That’s why I hired Greg in the first place, to ask him about the men there. But he won’t talk. That’s why we went to the church that day. We weren’t just being nosy. Phillip is smart. I thought that perhaps he might be down there waiting for his chance to strike at me.”

  “Could he do that? I mean, the Redeemers are pretty weird.” She was staring at me like I’d grown another head. “I mean, could he fit in with them?”

  “If anyone had the background to fit in with religious fanatics, it was darling Phillip. He knew the scriptures inside and out, and he knew exactly how to twist them to his own means. That’s what preachers do, they get a herd of folks to follow them like cows.” Three short chuckles escaped her. “Why, Phillip could be Rev. Marcus the preacherman himself.”

  I took a short breath. “You think your ex-husband is the preacherman?”

  “That remains to be seen, Rebekah. That remains to be seen.”

  Twenty-six

  JAMEY Louise returned to the barn about eleven o’clock, but she didn’t stay longer than three minutes. The heat and the flies and the smell of the blood must have gotten to her. She looked pale and drawn as she passed beneath me in the driveway. After leaving Nadine, still reclining on her sofa, I’d climbed back in the chinaberry tree and waited.

  When I was certain Nadine wasn’t coming back out to the barn, I climbed down from the tree and went inside. Greg wasn’t in any of the stalls, so I climbed the ladder to the loft, clearing my throat near the top as a warning of my approach.

  He was sitting on a bale of hay, facing me, when I pulled myself up onto the straw-covered floor.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer some privacy,” he said coldly.

  His long-sleeved shirt, filthy with dried blood and sweat, was buttoned wrong, cuffs hanging loose. Barely visible behind the bale of hay was some kind of container.

  “I’m sorry, Greg.”

  “Sorry that it wasn’t me, or sorry that you thought it was?”

  I was afraid to step any farther into the loft, so I hung at the end of the opening. “I’m glad it wasn’t you, and I’m sorry I jumped to that conclusion. I …” It was too hard to explain exactly how my mind had made that leap. Most of it was the crucifix, but some of it was the way Greg was looking at me now, like he could hurt me.

  “Whenever anything goes wrong on Kali Oka Road, the Redeemers will always be blamed.” He turned his head away from me when he spoke.

  I wanted to ask him outright about the preacherman, but he wouldn’t answer. He never talked about the Redeemers. I’d have to find a way to get him to talk. “It’s because y’all act like you’ve got something to hide. You clump up down there and run people off—”

  “Just nosy children who snoop around and then run back down the road to lie about us! Those are the only people who’ve been run off.”

  “Maybe you should have invited others to your church.”

  “So they could laugh and make fun of us? Point at us and call us hillbillies and primitives? Yeah! You act like Kali Oka is the first place we’ve ever been. Why do you think we move so much?” The last was spoken quietly.

  “You make yourselves different, and around here that means dangerous.”

  “Even to you, Bekkah Rich?” He sat slumped on the bale of hay. “Are we so dangerous to you that you’d go into our church and paint the crucifix black like you did?” he asked.

  I wasn’t even shocked that he thought I’d done such a thing. “I didn’t do that.”

  He smiled. “Then who? You’re the only one around here who’s shown any interest in what goes on at our church. You’re the one who’s been peeping in the church windows. I saw you staring at it that day, looking like it was some sort of evil thing.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Then who, Bekkah? Who would do such a thing while we were out of town? I know you were in the sanctuary.” He smiled, but he looked as if he were too weary to sit up a minute longer. He seemed to drift forward and catch himself. “I didn’t tell anyone else, but I knew you were there.”

  “How?”

  “I saw Picket’s tracks. She must have gotten her paws wet and then walked in the red dirt. There were perfect paw prints and then a little pile of dirt where she laid down beside one of the pews. You must have been in there a while before you decided to paint the crucifix.”

  My heart felt funny, like pressure had been added to the beat. I felt it in my temples, along with a burning shame. “I was in the church, but I didn’t touch that crucifix. I swear it.”

  “Then who did?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It was fine when I left. I swear it on a stack of Bibles.”

  Greg stood, and he really did falter. His hand shot out and grabbed the beam that supported the roof just in time to keep from falling on his face in the hay.

  “Greg!” I started forward, but he warned me back with a look that was cold.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Rebekah. I didn’t tell anyone that you were there. I would have gotten blamed for that anyway. Just know that your meddling has a price tag hooked to it.”

  “What are you talking about?” A whisper of fear tickled my neck. “What kind of price tag? I didn’t hurt anything. I didn’t want to go in the church, but I got frightened and there was no place else to go.”

  “Digging up graves?” he said, and his voice was ugly again. “Looking to see if the Redeemers had murdered someone? That’s the gossip, isn’t it, that we murder people who try to leave us. That we’re a cult and that we worship Satan.”

  “It was Magdeline. I was worried about her.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You’re worried about her so you almost get her strapped.”

  “How? What are you saying?”

  “If Rev. Marcus even thought she was talking to you, he’d half kill her. The women aren’t allowed to talk to anyone outside the church.”

  “I never talked to her. I never tried to talk to her. There’s no reason she should be in any trouble because of me.”

  “When Rev. Marcus saw the paint job on that crucifix, he said he’d give the congregation three days to come up with a confession.”

  “That’s stupid. Everyone was gone to Hattiesburg. None of you could have done it.”

  “Exactly.” Greg swayed a little on his feet but caught the b
eam again. “He said someone in the church had to tell our business and our plans, or the intruder wouldn’t have felt so free to sneak around and desecrate the crucifix. So he said we had three days to confess. And then …” Greg stopped.

  “Then what?” I demanded.

  “Then he would start with the beatings.”

  “Greg, my father’s in New Orleans, but I can call him. He’ll know what to do. He can stop this from happening.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Did he—”

  “He beat Jim first, as an example. But Jim wouldn’t say anything. When he couldn’t beat it out of him, he said I was next. But then he changed his mind and said it was Georgie. The discipline is public. Georgie couldn’t have taken it. He would have wet his pants. So I said I did it.” He took a step toward me. “The only thing that made it bearable was that I knew how awful you’d feel when you saw that I’d taken the beating you should have had.”

  What he was saying was like a riddle. “I didn’t do it, Greg. I didn’t. And I don’t know who did.”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot. It was like slow motion. I knew he was going to fall, and the edge of the loft was only three or four feet away from him. If he fell wrong, he could roll off the edge and down to the center aisle of the barn ten feet below. I lunged forward and grabbed his arm, pulling him back against several bundles of hay. He cried out as his back came in contact with the hay and rolled quickly to his stomach. I could see where his shirt had dried and stuck to his back. It wasn’t Caesar’s blood, not on his back.

  “Those bastards,” I whispered, sitting down beside him. “Don’t move, Greg.” I didn’t know what to do.

  “There’s some water by the hay,” he whispered.

  I got the container he’d been trying to hide. He wanted me to soak his shirt so that he could pull it off without tearing the scabs away. It was obvious he’d slept in the shirt, but I didn’t ask.

  “Greg, come to the house. My grandmother will help you.” I was surprised to find that I was crying.

  “No. If she sees my back, she’ll call the sheriff.”

  “Why is everybody here so afraid of the sheriff? Joe Wickham isn’t Satan. He needs to be called. That son of a bitch should pay for this, and my daddy will see that he does.”

  “Bekkah!” His hand shot through the hay and grabbed my ankle. “No lawmen. Nobody! You hear! Not at the Redeemers.”

  “What is it you have to hide?” I asked. I started to tell him that I knew about the babies, but I stopped.

  “Ask yourself the same question.” He jerked the collar of his shirt, tearing it half free of his back. Fresh blood covered the material in a matter of seconds.

  “I’ll get Nadine. She’ll know what to do.” I was panicked. He was hurting so much, and he was so mad.

  “Run, Bekkah. That’s what you always do, isn’t it?”

  “What should I do, Greg?” I was crying hard.

  “Run home. Run to Nadine. Then when you stop running, think for a moment what it might be like not to have anywhere to run to.”

  I stood clenching and unclenching my fingers in the rag that had been in the bucket.

  “There’s some epsom salt in Cammie’s grooming kit.” I picked up the pail of bloody water. “I’ll get some hot water from Nadine’s kitchen.”

  Greg was still white from pain. It occurred to me that he might be in shock. His features were sharp-edged, testimony to his sheer determination not to cry.

  “What will you tell Nadine?” he asked.

  “That Cammie has a sore I want to soak.” How had Nadine failed to see his condition? “Would it hurt if I told her? She’s good at doctoring things.”

  “I’d rather she didn’t know. Jamey either.”

  “Jamey doesn’t know?” The barn was dim, even with all of the lights on. It had been a gruesome morning. But if Jamey didn’t know today, she’d know soon. She was constantly touching him, running her hands along his arms and shoulders and back. Maybe I should call Jamey. She might be able to talk some sense into Greg.

  “Go on home, Bekkah. I’m not going to die.”

  I took the pail and climbed down the ladder. At the back door I called Nadine, but she didn’t answer. When I slipped inside I didn’t see her, but I could hear her foot thumping up and down on the floor in the living room. I could imagine her, sprawled on the Queen Anne with one leg bent and the heel rising and falling in a regular rhythm, as if she listened to music. I tried to hold my breath while I got the water, but I had to breathe. The smell, the events of the day, what I had left to do, it all made me queasy. Nothing felt real anymore. I had only to tend to Greg and then I could go home to Mama Betts.

  Greg was sitting with his head in his hands on the bale of hay when I got into the loft with the hot water and the salt. I’d also brought along some of the yellow salve Nadine used on the horses when they were cut. It said for use in horses only, but I’d gotten it in small cuts on my hands when I was doctoring a horse. It hadn’t killed me. Maybe it had helped hold off infection.

  There was a big bottle of methylate at home, but I didn’t think Greg would let me go get it. I was afraid it would kill him if I tried to use it on his back. Even with the shirt still on, it looked bad.

  It took thirty minutes of soaking to get the shirt pulled free. I took it down the ladder and soaked it in another bucket of cold water. Not that I cared for the shirt, but it was so coated with skin and scab and blood that it had to be washed clean before he could think of wearing it again. If he didn’t account for it, those bastards might beat him again.

  The crisscrosses on his back lapped over and over each other.

  “Coat hanger,” he said, knowing that I was wondering what he had been struck with.

  “My father will kill him.” I didn’t realize I spoke out loud.

  “My parents gave their approval.”

  “They belong in jail, then.”

  Greg laughed. It was the saddest sound. “They feel the same way about me. I confessed to destroying the crucifix, Bekkah. It’s not like they just decided to beat me.”

  “Even if you had done it, they shouldn’t have done this.” Some of the wounds were cut deep into Greg’s thin coating of muscle. I wondered about stitches, but there was hardly a place to stitch to.

  The salt water I’d made had been very mild. Nadine had said salt water was a good healing agent, and it also helped relieve soreness. She hadn’t said that it would sting and burn.

  “There’s some peroxide down in the tack room. Maybe we should use some of that before the salve.”

  “I don’t know.” Greg sounded weak. “Will it burn?”

  “Probably.”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I don’t think I can take it now.”

  “Let me get one of Arly’s T-shirts. It’ll be cooler, and you’ll sleep better.”

  “No!”

  “Greg.” I was standing behind him and I put my hands on his arms. “I’m going home to get one. Arly won’t ever know, and Mama Betts won’t catch me.”

  “Bekkah …”

  “I’m going.” I took off down the ladder before he could protest. He was a lot sicker than he wanted me to know. Passing Cammie’s stall, where Caesar had been killed, I didn’t look. When I got to the barn door, I started running. Picket fell into step beside me. We ran and ran in the hot August day, churning up small clouds of Kali Oka behind us.

  Two terrible things had happened in one day, and nobody wanted to call the sheriff. I might not call Joe Wickham, but I was going to call The Judge. As soon as it turned dark. Mama Betts would have his number and I’d call him in New Orleans. He had to come home and take care of this. Effie too. Bad things were happening. Until then, though, I couldn’t let Mama Betts see me. She’d know something was bad wrong if she took one look at me.

  I sneaked around to Arly’s window, pried off the screen and slipped in. I had to stand on an old tub we used to haul leaves to the ditch to burn. It was barely high enough, but I
managed to jump to the sill and wiggle up. It was a lot easier breaking out of the house than in, I decided.

  I got two white T-shirts, then slipped down to the bathroom for some aspirin and whatever else I could find. There weren’t any bandages nearly big enough for Greg’s back. There was one roll of gauze, but it wouldn’t cover much territory. In the back of the shelves where we kept our towels I found some old cotton diapers. I took four of those and some tape. They might make big bandages, and I could tape the corners of the diaper to his chest. He had to have something to keep the dirt out of his wounds.

  When I heard Mama Betts go outside to hang some clothes, I sneaked into the kitchen and got a brown paper sack. I filled it with biscuits from the morning, bread, slices of fresh ham, a hunk of cheese, some apples, and a knife. I’d make Greg some sandwiches, without the deadly mayonnaise.

  I made a dash to the study and grabbed a collection of stories by Poe and one of Effie’s books. Since I wasn’t willing to risk meeting Mama Betts in the yard, I waited until I heard the screen door slam as she came back in, and I went back out Arly’s window. I couldn’t get the screen to fit together right, so I did the best I could and took off. In Arly’s perpetual state of horniness, he probably wouldn’t even notice if a few mosquitoes got in and feasted on him.

  I beat it back to the barn as fast as I could with all the things I was carrying. When I got to the loft, Greg was lying on his side. A few pieces of hay had gotten into the salve, so I picked them out and made him a diaper bandage by taping the corners of the diaper to his collarbones and the front of his stomach. It took the whole diaper to cover his wounds. Then I made him put on the T-shirt. In my haste to escape, I’d forgotten a blanket, but I made him take two of the aspirin.

  “I need to rest for a while,” he said.

  I went down to the tack room and got the cleanest horse blanket I could find and took it up to him.